What can I expect from Dark Operations as an original series?

Certainly some elements of traditional Sci-Fi will be present: space battles, a war, and so on.  However, some of the traditional elements “Dark Operations” were purposely employed to initially involve viewers in story, so that we can evolve into some, what we feel, are groundbreaking story elements in future episodes.  After a few episodes, you will start to see the difference.

Ok, what IS different about Dark Operations?

To begin with, we don’t believe in ‘perfect people’ the way most Sci-Fi does.  So you can expect the characters to be flawed in different ways.  Some are more obvious than others, such as overweight people or the use of glasses for those that have difficulties with their sight.  Others are hidden, such as an outwardly really nice guy that brutally beats his wife in private.  Expect to see the classic element of ‘seven deadly sins’, along with huge story arcs, flashback episodes, and some surprises.  Ultimately, since we are fans, we are trying to answer the wishes of the fans.  So…we are listening.

Are there things I should NOT expect?

Don’t expect CGI to drive our story.  Our use of special effects is simply to help tell the story.  Overall, we don’t have that many effects shots or CGI sequences in the film.  We were much more concerned with getting all the information to the audience that they needed in the pilot episode so we could ‘go crazy’ in writing the series.  Also, don’t expect a totally innocent environment.  Viewers will hear and see things here that you wouldn’t see in other established franchises.

What will the rating for Dark Operations be?

As an independent film, we are not bound by the MPAA’s rating system.   We imagine that the pilot episode would likely carry a PG-13 rating for language, brief violence, minor gore, and adult themes.  As we get in to future episodes, some will be worse than others.  The bottom line here is that while we would like to make every attempt to produce something we would show our children; the reality is we won’t compromise the story by taking a short cut.  If the language or situations in a particular episode are going to be something extreme, you can expect a disclaimer at the beginning of the episode.

Is the teaser what the final film will look like?

No.  Many of the elements that you see in the teaser is a low quality file that was produced in order to facilitate it being added to the website.  Also, our CGI team was JUST STARTING to put things together at the time we made the teaser, so what little CGI is there was culled from the low-resolution test footage we were receiving.

Are you using sets?

Yes we are.  You saw one of our larger sets (the bridge of the Armstrong) in the teaser.  The bridge that you haven’t seen yet is bigger still.  While it was expensive, we were dedicated to giving our cast a world to play in, and our audience a tactile world they could touch as much as possible.  We do have some composite shots and locations shots, but most of our scenes are shot on a set.

Why an original franchise?

At the time we were creating the story and the pilot episode, we toyed with the idea of using an existing franchise and adapting what was ‘canon’ to suit our concept.  After doing some research, we felt that there were already plenty of ‘fan films’ being produced for most of the major Sci-Fi franchises.  Also, given the scale that we wanted to do this on, we didn’t think it would be affordable if we wanted to make it look like a certain world.  Instead, we created our own.  While doing an original franchise has its share of headaches, it ultimately allowed us to be more creative with the characters, Earth’s history, the future, and what everything looked like.  It also gave us the ability to put the end result in your hands in a variety of ways (DVD’s, Videos, etc.) that, thanks to copyright law, would be frowned upon if we used an existing franchise.  Ultimately, it was a win/win situation.

Who does your costuming and make-up effects?

Both costuming and make-up are handled in-house at Rising Phoenix Productions (RPP).

What made you decide to do this?

This is a difficult question to answer as all of us working on it have different reasons.  In short, we all believed that Sci-Fi fans have been ignored by studios for far too long.  We decided to take matters in to our own hands and see what we could do if we started writing our own adventure.  When you see the final result, keep in mind that we are going to constantly evolve the series based on how much our audience is willing to tolerate in terms of dramatic story vs. normal Sci-Fi fare.  Some things we do are done because they are expected, some are done for whimsy, and other things are done because we want to push the envelope.  As folks become more comfortable with us doing that, we will push it harder and further. 

If you have a question that you would like answered, please feel free to email us at info@risingphoenixpro.com.